Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Linguistic PhD, Pennsylvania State University USA:"In 3200 BC, there were many, many languages spoken besides Sumerian and Egyptian, but they were not fortunate enough to have a writing system. These languages are just as old. To take one interesting case, the Albanian language (spoken north of Greece) was not written down until about the 15th century AD, yet Ptolemy mentions the people in the first century BC.* The linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests that Albanians were a distinct people for even longer than that. So Albanian has probably existed for several millennia, but has only been written down for 500 years. With a twist of fate, Albanian might be considered very "old" and Greek pretty "new"."
.
Albanian is a direct descendant of a south-west group of Illyrian dialects. However, there have been other hypotheses proposed, among which the following merit to be mentioned.
A. The Pelasgian hypothesis.
Albanian is the continuation of the language of an ancient people called Pelasgians, a hypothesis rather diffused in the 19th century. J.G. von HAHN (1854) formulated in a strict manner the hypothesis that the Albanians are direct descendants of the Illyrians, Macedonians, and Epirotes, and that in the remotest times they formed a united race together with the Latins and the Hellenes called Pelasgians, with their language, the Pelasgian. A. SCHLEICHER gave full authority to this theory of Pelasgian origin with his family tree of languages. Today this is considered a groundless idea.
.
B. The Thracian (Dacian) hypothesis.
Albanian is the continuation of the
Thracian language. This thesis, implying an Albanian-Rumanian symbiosis, is supported by students of Rumanian: H. HIRT, K. PAUL, G. WEIGAND, H. BARIC, I. POPOVIC, and I. I. RUSSU. Only scant remains of Thracian exist, but HIRT saw Albanians as descendants of the Thracians. This means that in the early Middle Ages the Albanians moved westward from the central part of the Balkans, but there are no historical records of such a massive
migration. To BARIC Albanian is an Illyricized Thracian dialect.
.
C. The Illyrian-Thracian hypothesis. Albanian is derived from a mixture of Illyrian and Thracian. N. JOKL supported the idea of an intermediate position between Illyrian and Thracian. However, Thracian is not better known than Illyrian, and it is difficult to distinguish their specific elements, or to trace a dividing line between Illyrian and Thracian. For JOKL the Albanians are probably the descendants of the Illyrian tribe of Dardanians, living in the interior of the Balkan peninsula, who migrated westward some time in the late Roman period.
.
D. The Daco-Moesian hypothesis is sustained by the Bulgarian academician V. GEORGIEV.
.
E. The independent hypothesis.
H. KRAHE affirms that Albanian presents an
independent Indo-European language. The vast work of Prof. E. ÇABEJ on Albanian
etymology (1976), an unrivaled synthesis of everything known in this field, refers to remote periods of Albanian as an Indo-European language, without considering the Illyrian language. Following a strict method, the Albanian etymologies would go back to Illyrian forms, which in turn would be traced back to Indo-European roots, like the Italian etymologies going back to Latin forms. E. HAMP (1972) states: "Albanian shows no obvious close affinity to any other Indo-European language;It is plainly the sole modern
survivor of its own subgroup".
Rating: User: 1bilderberg 2008-05-04T18:22:15.593Z
Tags:
fathers | call | ancient | pelageans | ancient | "greece" |